Part 39 (1/2)
The rest chorused: ”Have mercy!”
”Spare thy slaves, O Lord!” went on the old man. ”Spare us ere all perish.
We wors.h.i.+p at thy shrine. We grudge not thy elephants our miserable crops.
Are they not thy servants? But let not the Striped Death slay all of us.”
Dermot questioned him and then explained to Noreen that a man-eating tiger had taken up its residence near the village and was rapidly killing off its inhabitants.
”Oh, do help them,” she said. ”Can't you shoot it?”
He reflected for a few moments.
”Yes, I think I know how to get it. Will you wait for me in the village?”
”What? Mayn't I go with you to see you kill it? Please let me. I promise I'll not scream or be stupid.”
He looked at her admiringly.
”Bravo!” he said. ”I'm sure you'll be all right. Very well. I promise you you shall see a sight that not many other women have seen.”
He borrowed a _puggri_--a strip of cotton cloth several yards long--from a villager, and bade them show him where the tiger lay up during the heat of the day. When they had done so from a safe distance, he turned Badshah, and, to Noreen's surprise, sped off swiftly in the opposite direction.
Suddenly the girl touched his arm quietly.
”Look! I see a wild elephant. There's another! And another!” she whispered.
”Yes; I've come in search of them,” he replied in his ordinary tone. ”It's Badshah's herd.”
”Is it really? How wonderful! How did you know where to find them?” she cried, thrilled by the sight of the great beasts all round them and exclaiming with delight at the solemn little woolly babies, many newly born. For this was the calving season.
Dermot uttered a peculiar cry that sent the cow-elephants huddling together, their young hiding under their bodies, while from every quarter the great tuskers broke out through the undergrowth and came to him in a ma.s.s. Then, as Badshah turned and set off at a rapid pace, the bull-elephants followed.
When he arrived near the spot in which the man-eater was said to have his lair, Dermot stopped them all. Despite her protests he tied Noreen firmly with the _puggri_ to the rope crossing Badshah's pad. Then he drove his animal into the herd of tuskers, which had crowded together, and divided them into two bodies. The tiger was reported to lie up in a narrow _nullah_ filled and fringed with low bushes. From the near bank to where Badshah stood the forest was free from undergrowth, which came to within a score of yards of the far bank.
Badshah smelled the ground, and the other elephants followed his example and, when they scented the tiger's trail, began to be restless and excited.
A sharp cry from Dermot and the two bodies of tuskers separated and moved away, branching off half right and left, and disappeared in the undergrowth.
Dermot c.o.c.ked his double-barrelled rifle. There was a long pause. A strange feeling of awe crept over Noreen at the realisation of her companion's strange power over these great animals. No wonder the superst.i.tious natives believed him to be a G.o.d.
Presently there was a loud cras.h.i.+ng in the undergrowth beyond the _nullah_, and Noreen saw the saplings in it agitated, as if by the pa.s.sage of the elephants. The tiger gave no sign of life. The girl's heart beat fast, and her breath came quickly. But her companion never moved.
Suddenly Noreen gasped, for through the screen of thin bushes that fringed the edge of the _nullah_ a hideous painted mask was thrust out. It was a tiger's face, the ears flattened to the skull, the eyes flaming, the lips drawn back to bare the teeth in a ghastly snarl. The brute saw Badshah and drew quietly back. A pause. Then it sprang into full view and poised for a single instant on the far bank. But at that very moment the line of tuskers burst out of the tangled undergrowth and the tiger jumped down into the _nullah_ again.
Then like a flash it leaped into sight over the near bank, bounding in a furious charge straight at Badshah. Noreen held her breath as it crouched to spring. Dermot's rifle was at his shoulder, and he pressed the trigger.
There was a click--the cartridge had missed fire. And the tiger sprang full at the man.
But as it did so Badshah swung swiftly round--well for Noreen that she was securely fastened--for he had been standing a little sideways. And with an upward sweep of his head he caught the leaping tiger in mid-air on the point of his tusk, hurling it back a dozen yards.
As the baffled brute struck the ground with a heavy thud it lay still for a second and then sprang up, but at that moment Dermot's second barrel rang out, and, shot through the brain, the tiger collapsed, its head resting on its paws. A tremor shook the powerful frame, the tail twitched feebly, then all was still.